Ex-USDA official blasts ‘mind-boggling’ Biden regulations on farming, menthol: ‘Doesn’t seem very American’
A former USDA official is speaking out about Biden administration regulations he believes are harming the farming industry and also warned about a proposed ban on menthol cigarettes he says has already been tried and failed that will deal a significant blow to tobacco farmers. Ray Starling, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, told Fox News Digital that the lives of farmers have become more difficult since Biden took office for a variety of reasons, including water policy, issues with the guest worker visa program, and burdensome regulations particularly related to the FDA that he says are putting the agriculture industry as a whole in peril. “I couldn’t start the conversation without starting with water and water policy,” Starling said. “When you think about all the different states around the country, water presents different challenges and different opportunities for different parts of the country, but at the end of the day, anybody involved in agriculture needs it, needs access to it, needs to be able to manage it and probably the biggest thing we’ve seen in the water space is that this administration seems very determined to maximize the EPA’s jurisdiction over land that has some kind of water on it.” Starling explained that EPA regulations regarding water, which farmers and ranchers have labeled an “attack on farmers,” have not subsided as a threat simply because the Supreme Court issued a ruling last year narrowing the federal government’s authority to regulate bodies of water and effectively upended a Biden administration policy that recently went into effect. CATTLE RANCHER WARNS CLIMATE CRISIS IS THREATENING US FOOD SUPPLY “Ironically, they’ve only chosen to change their approach at a minimal amount,” Starling said. “The holding is the EPA can only regulate you if there is a continuous surface water connection to a relatively permanent body of water and so EPA took very serious that question of continuous surface water connection,” Starling explained. “But now they’re trying to read expansively, the second part of that limitation, which is there has to be a relatively permanent body of water to which it is connected, and they are obviously trying to maximize use of the phrase’ relatively permanent,’ and so EPA is a great example of something we have to keep our eye on.” Starling continued, “The United States continues to grow, particularly in states like North Carolina, we’re seeing a lot of land use pressure from needs and desires in the community besides farming, and so, if you’re going to continue to limit the amount of land that I have to farm, that’s obviously going to make me less productive in some ways, and so I think water is a big one.” Another issue, Starling said , is the Biden administration making it more difficult for farmers to access labor through the guest worker visa program, also known as the H-2A program. “I recognize people have different views about this program, but American agriculture is absolutely dependent on our guest worker visa program,” Starling said. ‘COSTLY’ ESG STANDARDS, CLIMATE POLICIES WILL ULTIMATELY REDUCE FOOD AND ENERGY SUPPLIES: REPORT “This involves workers that come from foreign countries, primarily from Mexico, primarily from southern Mexico,” Starling said. “They come in with a work visa. They are cleared by the Department of Homeland Security to do that. There is a contract for work waiting for them here. What’s interesting about this program is farmers that use it have to advertise those jobs to Americans first. They have to agree that they will pay Americans as much as they will the foreign worker. They have to offer the American worker the same benefits that they have to offer, that they are offering the foreign worker. So, we’re not supplanting American jobs in this process. Frankly, we are supporting them. And … it just feels like this current administration wants to make that program harder and harder and harder to use. It’s already incredibly expensive.” Starling said the Biden administration has continued to make accessing foreign labor more expensive for farms by requiring them to pay for travel, housing for union representatives, pesticide safety and other regulations and has already had “eight different rule-makings” for farmers on the issue. “It is mind-boggling that this is an American regulation in any sector, but particularly in agriculture, where it’s pretty darn important to our country,” Starling said. “It just seems that this administration is bound and determined to make the raising of that food harder and harder and less and less economical.” Starling acknowledged that the red tape involving foreign workers is even more perplexing given the backdrop of a record number of illegal immigrants being allowed to cross the southern border, for which the Biden administration has faced intense scrutiny for not doing more to prevent. “It is mind-boggling that we are raising the cost for farmers to access legal labor that comes and goes, that is vetted through a security process that protects American workers and ensures that they are not displaced in the marketplace of employment, and yet this other problem has been unresolved down at the border,” Starling said. DOZEN STATE GOP AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONERS LAUNCH PROBE OF US BANKS OVER ESG INVESTING: ‘IT MUST BE STOPPED’ “In fact, I’m in meetings with farmers now who look around and say, you know, we’ve had this influx of 5 to 6 million people during the course of this administration and I have yet to see a single one show up on my farm in response to any of my advertisements to work. And so, I don’t think there’s a way to reconcile those two policies. I don’t think there’s a way to make that make sense.” Starling also pointed to regulations at the Food and Drug Administration, particularly regarding menthol, as something that has made life harder for farmers during the Biden years. “In addition to more regulations on our fruit and vegetable production and fresh produce, tobacco is still an important crop in many
Sudanese refugees face gruelling wait in overcrowded South Sudan camps
A new truck arrives in the South Sudanese town of Renk, packed with dozens of elderly men, women and children, their exhausted faces betraying the strain of their traumatic journey out of war-ravaged Sudan. They are among more than half a million people who have crossed the border into South Sudan, which is struggling to accommodate the new arrivals. Renk is just 10km (6.2 miles) from Sudan, where fighting broke out in April last year between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since then, Renk’s two transit centres run by the United Nations have been overwhelmed by an uninterrupted influx of frightened people, fleeing for their lives. The journey is rife with danger, said Fatima Mohammed, a 33-year-old teacher who escaped with her husband and five children from El-Obeid city in central Sudan. “The bullets were entering our house. We were trapped between crossfire in our own street. So we understood that we needed to leave for the good of our kids,” she said, describing the situation in Sudan as “unsustainable”. It took them five days to make their escape, with Sudanese soldiers and RSF fighters “making [it] difficult for us to leave the country”. “They took all our phones at one checkpoint, a lot of our money [at] another one. We saw abuses happening at those checkpoints,” she said. Sudanese refugees line up during a cash assistance programme at a transit centre for refugees in Renk [Luis Tato/AFP] ‘Stuck here’ Since the start of the conflict, nearly eight million people, half of them children, have fled Sudan. Around 560,000 of them have taken refuge in South Sudan, according to the UN, which estimates that around 1,500 new arrivals turn up in the country every day. Many spend months waiting in the transit camps, hopeful that someday soon they will be able to return home. Iman David fled fighting in Sudan’s capital Khartoum with her then three-month-old daughter, leaving her husband behind. “It was supposed to be a short stay, but I am still stuck here in Renk after seven months,” said the 20-year-old. “My hope is to go back to Khartoum and reunite with my husband but I don’t know his fate.” Thousands of civilians were killed in the war, according to UN figures. Some 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, need humanitarian assistance, while an estimated 3.8 million children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition, the UN says. Sudanese refugees and ethnic South Sudanese families who have fled the war in Sudan gather after crossing the border while waiting to be registered by the authorities at the Joda border crossing point, near Renk [Luis Tato/AFP] ‘Better than Khartoum’ While many in Renk long to return home, others hope to travel onwards to the town of Malakal in Upper Nile state, which is also hosting a huge number of refugees. At Renk port, hundreds of people lined up under the oppressive glare of the midday sun, waiting hours to hop aboard the metal boats which make the trip at least twice a week. As she waited, Lina Juna, a 27-year-old mother of four, said her final destination was the South Sudanese capital, Juba. “I have nothing to do in Juba, no family members or friends, no business or work to take care of because I have spent all my life in Sudan,” she said. “But I still expect Juba to be much better than Khartoum,” she added, recalling days spent struggling to find food as heavy fighting rocked the city. Several hours later, she managed to board a boat, one of two carrying some 300 people each. “Today is a good day for us,” said Deng Samson, who works for the International Organization for Migration. “Some weeks we have seen ourselves completely overwhelmed,” said Samson, adding that the approaching monsoon made him nervous. “We are truly afraid of what will happen when the rainy season comes, with waters rising from the river and disrupting the normal functioning of the port.” With up to 10 trucks and buses arriving in Renk every day, the UN is trying to mobilise the international community, launching an appeal for $4.1bn this month to respond to the most urgent humanitarian needs. Adblock test (Why?)
‘We want dignity’: Indian farmers defy pellets, drones to demand new deal
Shambhu border, India — Balvinder Singh lies on his side, writhing in pain, on a hospital bed in the northern Indian state of Punjab. When Singh, 47, was hit by a volley of piercing objects while marching towards New Delhi with thousands of other farmers, he did not know what had struck him. But his body is pockmarked with telltale black scars from iron pellets fired by security forces to prevent farmers from crossing over from Punjab into the state of Haryana, which borders New Delhi. Haryana is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, whose federal policies the farmers are protesting against. Singh, a farmer from Faridkot district in Punjab, who was admitted at Rajindra Hospital in the city of Patiala, was hit when he was calming the angry young farmers at the front of the protest site, metres away from the border on February 14, a day after the protests began. “I was calming down the protesters when I was hit,” Singh says, his left eye bloody from a pellet injury. “I could not understand whether it was a bullet or something else that hurt me.” Singh says he had never heard of iron pellets being used as ammunition by security forces against civilian protesters. In the past, such pellets have been mostly used in Indian-administered Kashmir as a crowd-control mechanism. Pellet guns have blinded scores of people in Kashmir. Balvinder Singh, his eye bloodied by a wound from an iron pellet fired by police, in a hospital in Patiala, Punjab [Md Meherban/Al Jazeera] Now, they are part of the intensifying confrontation between farmers and the government. The government in Punjab, which is ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party that is in opposition nationally, has said that three farmers have lost their eyesight after being hit with the Haryana police pellets and a dozen others have also suffered pellet injuries. Critics of the farmers, meanwhile, argue that the central government cannot allow the protests to escalate the way they did in 2021, when clashes broke out on the streets of New Delhi. Some protesters reached the Red Fort – from where the prime minister delivers the Independence Day speech – and were accused of yanking down the national flag. A security crackdown followed. Yet, days after this latest agitation kicked off, there are growing signs of a repeat of the kind of escalation in tensions that India witnessed three years ago. Thousands of farmers in their tractor trolleys, small trucks, on foot, and scooters have travelled from rural areas of Punjab and gathered on the Punjab-Haryana highway waiting to march on the capital city. They are hoping to press the BJP government for demands including a guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for their crops and loan waivers, among others. In Haryana, the government has been criticised for using drones to drop tear gas shells on the protesting farmers. The state’s police have sealed the border with heavy cemented blocks, iron nails and barbed wire. Singh, who owns a four-acre plot where he grows rice and wheat, says there is no guarantee of price in the fluctuating market for other crops. “We spend more on cultivation [when growing other crops] and there is no earning,” he says. “Now, we are also facing water shortages for even growing these two crops [rice and wheat]. We are in deep stress.” At present the government buys rice and wheat from farmers for public distribution, and offers them a minimum support price for these grains. But other agricultural commodities do not receive this price protection. That, farmers say, has in turn led to the overproduction of rice and wheat. Paddies in particular, are water intensive, leading to depleted groundwater levels. “If I want to diversify to other crops, there should be financial security for me that I will get a good price – that is what we are asking. We are asking for our rights,” says Singh, from the hospital, where eight other farmers, some aged above 60, are also being treated. One of them, Mota Singh, 32, from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, said that he was hit by a rubber bullet on his hand. To Mota, something even more fundamental is at stake than crop prices. “Farmers are demanding dignity, we cannot be poor forever,” says Mota, when asked why he was protesting. Female farmers listen to a speech by a farming leader at the protest site on the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab [Md Meherban/Al Jazeera] Why are farmers again on the roads? More than 250 farmers’ unions have supported the protest that is being organised from Punjab. Up to two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population are engaged in agriculture-related activities for their livelihoods and the sector contributes nearly a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product. Farmers say that their main demand – minimum support price legislation – would ensure that the rates of their crops are sustainable and provide them with decent earnings. At present, the government protects wheat and rice against the price fall by setting a minimum purchase price, a system that was introduced more than 60 years ago, to ensure food security in India. Development economist Jayati Ghosh says that if other crops were also brought under the MSP regime, it would help provide sustainable financial support to the farmers. This wouldn’t mean that the government would need to buy large volumes of these crops, says Ghosh, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It’s only when the price drops below the MSP that the government would need to step in and buy just enough that the price rises above the minimum set bar, she says. “It’s a market intervention that makes sure that farmers have this other option,” Ghosh says. In India, experts say that agriculture has been going through a severe crisis due to increasing extreme weather combined with a lowering water table, affecting yields and pushing farmers deep into debt. Thousands of farmers take their own lives each year.
In Gaza City, death and famine take hold amid Israel’s war
Gaza City, Gaza Strip – More than four months of Israel’s war on Gaza have left it unrecognisable. In the streets, famine is a reality for nearly all the besieged population while the smell of death is ever-present. With nearly no access to medical care, many are suffering from disease, while infection awaits tens of thousands of men, women and children injured by Israeli attacks. Famine Hunger has taken a heavy toll on everyone. With businesses and banking services either destroyed or unable to operate, there is no cash, no income and little to nothing to meet the cost of feeding their starving families. With Gaza’s ability to produce its own food decimated by Israeli bombs, a hungry population looks for food from outside the Strip, provisions increasingly limited by Israel’s continuing blockade. Agriculture is in ruins. Fertile areas such as Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia lie neglected, as winter rains, vital to farmers, fall unheeded. Poultry and livestock have also been destroyed, victims either directly or indirectly of the Israeli bombs. [embedded content] Fish is a luxury lost to the coastal enclave’s population. Famine is a growing reality. Few supplies are left and malnutrition is growing. The international aid that does make it in can barely meet the needs of a hungry population, or prevent the situation from deteriorating. Since the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive, many humanitarian agencies, like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have halted operations, meaning hundreds of thousands of people cannot access any aid. The endless waves of bombing have destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, razing or shuttering the factories producing and processing food. About half the population of Gaza now faces daily shortages of bread, clean water and the basic ingredients for life. In the east of Gaza, canned goods were once processed and bakeries seemed to stand on every street, they are now simply memories for the starving population. As are meat and dairy. What food can be found is either extremely expensive or greatly reduced in quantity, often both. Palestinian child crying amid a crush of children in line to receive food prepared by volunteers for Palestinian families displaced to southern Gaza by Israeli attacks, on February 10, 2024 [Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency] The struggle extends beyond food. Water has become so scarce that contaminated drinking water has become the norm. As more people, especially children, consume polluted water, severe bacterial illnesses have thrived. For those willing to risk falling buildings or bombs, firewood to boil water can be found, but cooking gas is a distant memory. Disease With uncooked food common, parents, desperate to feed their starving children, feel they have no option but to give them raw food, despite the consequences of doing so. Across the Strip, infrastructure and sewage systems have been destroyed, resulting in a free flow of sewage that contributes to growing respiratory problems as a population weakened by hunger keeps breathing. Added to that is the smell of the dead, decomposing bodies of people and animals lying scattered in the streets or under rubble, polluting the air and raising the risk of disease transmission. Medical facilities in Gaza have nearly all been destroyed, leaving those injured by Israeli attacks isolated and those with more complex or chronic needs, such as prenatal care or treatments like dialysis, without proper care. An injured Palestinian child on her mother’s lap on the floor because there is nowhere else for her t wait for medical attention; in Nasser Hospital after Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis on January 22, 2024 [Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency] In and around Gaza City, there are only two functioning hospitals: al-Shifa Hospital and Ahli Arab Hospital. In addition to struggling with many of the same circumstances as the rest of the Strip, they struggle with the demands of hundreds of thousands of injured and sick people calling for help. The outcome is predictable. Thousands are slowly dying. Without electricity, large numbers of the injured, the sick, premature newborn babies and those lying in intensive care units (ICUs) must all depend on oxygen pumped by machines reliant on generators, whose fuel supply is uncertain. Everyone is at risk. Prenatal care units are out of service, increasing the risk of babies being born with health problems or complications. Inevitably, as the bombing continues, the incidence of disease and the ever-present need for amputations rarely recedes. All the while, the cold bites, affecting all. Each day begins with a challenge of reaching its end. In Gaza, sadly, that’s enough. [embedded content] Adblock test (Why?)
Liberal pundits, urging Biden to withdraw, pushing convention scenario
A growing number of left-leaning pundits are hopping off the Biden train and they’re trying to come up with a plan to enable the president to jump off as well. The attacks from the right are one thing, but these are Joe Biden’s people, who say he’s been a good president, who say he’s accomplished a great deal, but who say his age renders him either too likely or too certain to lose to Donald Trump. It’s the one problem he can’t fix. At the same time, a new report says the Resistance is growing frustrated and burned out. Nate Silver, the data guru and hardly a right-winger, says: “Personally, I crossed the rubicon in November, concluding that Biden should stand down if he wasn’t going to be able to run a normal re-election campaign — meaning, things like conduct a Super Bowl interview. Yes, it’s a huge risk and, yes, Biden can still win. But he’s losing now and there’s no plan to fix the problems.” MEDIA DEEM TRUMP THE NOMINEE, DESPITE HALEY TYING HIM TO PUTIN After noting that an improving economy hasn’t helped him, Silver says “it’s become even clearer that Biden’s age is an enormous problem for him. As many as 86% of Americans say he’s too old in one poll, though numbers in the 70-to-75% range are more common — still an overwhelming majority in a bitterly-divided country.” And that wasn’t helped by the special counsel’s report calling him an elderly man with a poor memory. “But even the most optimistic Democrats, if you read between the lines, are really arguing that Democrats could win despite Biden and not because of him. Biden is probably a below-replacement-level candidate at this point because Americans have a lot of extremely rational concerns about the prospect of a Commander-in-Chief who would be 86 years old by the end of his second term. It is entirely reasonable to see this as disqualifying.” Wait, there’s more. FANI WILLIS IS IN A ‘DANGEROUS SPOT’: JACQUI HEINRICH “I can now point you to moments when he is faltering in his campaign for the presidency because his age is slowing him. This distinction between the job of the presidency and the job of running for the presidency keeps getting muddied, including by Biden himself. And what I think we’re seeing is that he is not up for this. He is not the campaigner he was, even five years ago…The way he moves, the energy in his voice.” Ezra Klein, the uber-liberal New York Times podcaster, also wants the president out. “Step one, unfortunately, is convincing Biden that he should not run again. That he does not want to risk being Ruth Bader Ginsburg — a heroic, brilliant public servant who caused the outcome she feared most because she didn’t retire early enough.” Despite what he called the “Kamala Harris problem,” Klein says to assume that Biden steps aside. “Then what? Well, then Democrats do something that used to be common in politics but hasn’t been in decades. They pick their nominee at the convention.” Silver agrees with this scenario as well. I’m here to tell you, barring a major health scare, that’s not happening. Biden has been running for president since 1987 (I did a long interview with him during that campaign). He finally got the job. He likes being in charge. He’s not going to walk away. And in fairness, Biden has made adjustments in the last two weeks. He now takes on-camera questions from reporters almost every day, sometimes longer than others. Just yesterday, he walked over to say, in the wake of Alexei Navalny’s murder, he’d be announcing a package of sanctions against Russia on Friday. And he’s given two televised speeches. Still, liberal Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has been arguing since 2022 that Biden should step aside, and without a major change in strategy, “he should find some medical pretext to step aside in time for a replacement to be chosen at the Democratic convention.” Moderate conservative Ross Douthat says flatly in his Times column that Biden should not be running for re-election. As if the Times might be in danger of under-covering this issue, the paper also says that “anti-Trump voters are grappling with another powerful sentiment: exhaustion.” “Some folks are burned out on outrage,” Rebecca Lee Funk, founder of the liberal activist group Outrage, told the paper. A Pittsburgh security guard said “It’s crisis fatigue, for sure.” DEMOCRATS WIN SEAT, REPUBLICANS WIN IMPEACHMENT, TWO PRESIDENTS CLASH OVER NATO How about the right? National Review’s Noah Rothman, who thinks Biden will narrowly win, explains the grand voting shift that has the Democrats in trouble: “Despite his self-set reputation as a lunch-pail-toting nine-to-fiver with familial roots set deep in the carbon-rich soil of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Joe Biden has presided over the hemorrhaging of his party’s support among non-college-educated voters. The Democratic Party is increasingly dominated by degree-holders…The party is pinning all its electoral hopes on driving up turnout among this relatively affluent, highly educated slice of the electorate. The big problem with that plan is that there just aren’t enough of those voters… “In 1999, according to Gallup’s historical surveys, working-class Americans identified more as Democrats than as Republicans by 14 points. Today, that has flipped, with the GOP enjoying a 14-point advantage over Democrats among those voters. Democrats have suffered similarly with young voters: Today, only 8% more voters between the ages of 18 and 29 associate themselves with the Democratic Party than with the GOP.” This is eye-popping for those of us who grew up with the Republicans holding the monopoly on wealthier college graduates and favoring aggressive military intervention abroad. Rothman concludes: “Even with Trump at the top of the ticket, Democrats appear committed to a strategy that will produce, at best, the narrowest of re-election victories.” On the other side, meanwhile, Nikki Haley gave a South Carolina speech to declare she’s not going anywhere. Plenty of Republicans have “surrendered” to pressure because “they didn’t
Two men charged with murder in shooting at Kansas City Super Bowl parade
Dominic Miller and Lyndell Mays face charges of second-degree murder in the shooting that left one person dead and more than 20 injured. Two men in the United States have been charged with murder for a gunfight on the fringe of a Super Bowl victory rally in Kansas City, which killed one person and wounded more than 20 others, according to prosecutors and court documents. Prosecutors in the state of Missouri told reporters on Tuesday that Lyndell Mays and Dominic Miller were charged with second-degree murder and several weapons counts in the shooting, which began in a quarrel over eye contact. The arrests of Mays and Miller brought to four the number of people facing prosecution in the Valentine’s Day shooting. Two teenagers were also taken into custody last week and charged as juveniles in family court with firearms offences and resisting arrest. Prosecutors have said they would seek to also charge the two minors as adults and that the investigation was continuing. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said the investigation showed the violence on February 14 stemmed from an argument between Mays and another person who was a stranger to him. Baker told reporters their quarrel “very quickly escalated,” with Mays pulling out a pistol, followed by others in the vicinity “almost immediately” drawing their weapons. Police clear the area after shots were fired after the celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVIII [David Rainey/Reuters] While both Mays and Miller are charged with murder, Baker said the evidence shows it was a bullet fired from Miller’s weapon that struck and killed Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan, 43, a radio personality. Police have previously said she was one of 23 people struck by gunfire, including at least nine children, but court documents filed against Mays put the total number of known gunshot victims at 25, including Lopez-Galvan. Mays told detectives he began firing after someone in the other group said, “I’m going to get you,” which he took to mean they would try to kill him, according to affidavits. He said he chose a random person from the other group to shoot at as that person was running away, the document says. Miller initially told investigators that he and his friends began running after hearing gunfire and that he was shot in the back, one affidavit says. When investigators told Miller they had video of him chasing someone in Mays’s group and shooting, Miller admitted to firing four to five shots, the affidavit said. Authorities did not release the ages of either man but court records show that Mays is in his early 20s and Miller is 18 or 19. The shooting unfolded following a parade and rally near the city’s landmark Union Station, where police said upward of a million fans had gathered as the Kansas City Chiefs were celebrating their Super Bowl triumph over the San Francisco 49ers. The broadcast of the NFL championship game on February 11 drew a record television audience, in part due to the heightened media attention surrounding the romance between the Chiefs’ Travis Kelce and pop superstar Taylor Swift. She attended the Super Bowl but was not present for the rally. Probable-cause statements filed by prosecutors in conjunction with the criminal complaints lodged against Mays and Miller said that both men were themselves hospitalised by gunshot wounds they sustained during the violence. A conviction for second-degree murder in Missouri is punishable by a prison sentence of 10 to 30 years or life. The incident was at least the 48th mass shooting in the US in 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive organisation, which counts those in which four or more people are shot, not including a perpetrator. This year, so far, it has registered 55 mass shootings. Adblock test (Why?)
World condemns US’s latest UN Security Council veto on Gaza ceasefire
The United States has again vetoed a draft UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Israel’s war in Gaza, prompting widespread criticism from rivals and allies alike. The move on Tuesday was the third US veto of a UNSC resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, and came a day after Washington circulated a resolution that would support a temporary ceasefire linked to the release of all Israeli captives from the Palestinian enclave. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining, reflecting the strong support from countries around the globe for ending the devastating conflict that has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians. Here’s how countries and world leaders responded. China Zhang Jun, China’s envoy to the UN, expressed “strong disappointment and dissatisfaction” with the US, according to the Xinhua news agency. “The US veto sends a wrong message, pushing the situation in Gaza into a more dangerous one,” said Zhang, adding that objection to a ceasefire in Gaza is “nothing different from giving the green light to the continued slaughter”. “Only by extinguishing the flames of war in Gaza can the world prevent the fires of hell from engulfing the entire region,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. Russia Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia said the US veto marked “another black page in the history of the Security Council”. He accused the US of trying to play for time so that Israel could complete its “inhumane plans” for Gaza, namely to squeeze the Palestinians out of the territory and completely “cleanse” the enclave. He added that no matter how bitter the “aftertaste” of the vote may be, “we are not in the mood to give up”. France France’s UN envoy Nicolas de Riviere expressed regret that a UNSC ceasefire resolution “could not be adopted, given the disastrous situation” in Gaza. De Riviere added that France, which voted for the resolution, would continue to work towards all captives being released and for a ceasefire to be “implemented immediately”. France regrets that the 🇩🇿 resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza could not be adopted, given the disastrous situation on the ground. All hostages must be released now and a ceasefire must be implemented immediately. France will remain committed at the UNSC to that end. pic.twitter.com/dqwSWwgVQZ — Nicolas de Rivière (@NDeRiviere) February 20, 2024 Algeria Algeria’s envoy said the UNSC has “failed once again” and warned the move could have profound consequences for the Middle East as a whole. “Our message to you today is that the international community should respond to the calls for ending the killing of Palestinians by calling for an immediate ceasefire. All those impeding such calls should review their policies and their calculations because wrong decisions today will have a cost on our region and our world tomorrow. And this cost will be violence and instability,” Amar Bendjama said. “So ask yourselves, examine your conscience. What will your decisions today cause? How will history judge you?” Hamas The Palestinian group said the administration of US President Joe Biden’s decision to block Algeria’s draft resolution benefits the agenda of the Israeli occupation, which aims to “kill and displace” Palestinians. “President Joe Biden and his administration bear direct responsibility for derailing the resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza,” Hamas said in a statement. “The American position is considered a green light for the occupation to commit more massacres and kill our innocent people through bombing and starvation.” Palestinian Authority The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the US veto defied the international community and gave Israel “an additional green light for the Israeli occupation to continue its aggression against the people of Gaza and to launch a bloody assault against Rafah”. The Palestinian presidency also said that it holds the US administration responsible for “supporting and providing protection” to Israel’s “barbaric attacks” against children, women and the elderly in Gaza. “This policy makes the United States a partner in the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing and the war crimes Israeli forces are committing,” the office said. Qatar Qatar’s UN Ambassador Alya Ahmed Saif Al Thani said she regretted the UNSC’s failure to adopt the Algeria-drafted resolution and pledged to continue facilitating efforts to secure a truce in Gaza. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry expressed “regret” at the veto and stressed the “need now more than ever to reform the Security Council to carry out its responsibilities in maintaining peace and security with credibility and without double standards”. #Statement | The Foreign Ministry expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s regret over the veto of the draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the #Gaza Strip and its surroundings, which Algeria submitted to the Security Council on behalf of the Arab countries. pic.twitter.com/6S0COWbERD — Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) February 20, 2024 Norway Norway’s mission to the UN said it “regrets” that the council was not able to adopt a resolution on an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. “It is imperative to end the horror in Gaza,” it added. Norway regrets that the #UNSC yet again was unable to adopt a resolution on an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in #Gaza. It is imperative to end the horror in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/9Sh3ntIQty — NorwayUN (@NorwayUN) February 20, 2024 Cuba Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez blasted the US, saying its veto made it complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. “The US has just vetoed again the UN Security Council resolution that demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the forced displacement of the Palestinian population,” Bermudez said in a social media post. “They are accomplices of this genocide of Israel against Palestine.” Amnesty International Agnes Callamard, the director of the human rights group, said that Washington had a chance to protect Palestinian civilians but chose “the opposite path” at the UNSC. “And yet again… when the US could do the right thing: protect Palestinians against serious risks of genocide; respect international law and universality; prevent massive killings and sufferings – it chose the opposite path,” Callamard
Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 138
The US vetoes a supported UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, while ICJ hearings continue. Here’s how things stand on Wednesday, February 21, 2024: Fighting and humanitarian crisis Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said the Israeli military has bombed a shelter hosting MSF staff in al-Mawasi near Khan Younis in southern Gaza. In the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday afternoon, 103 Palestinians were reported killed and 142 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The World Food Programme said it has paused deliveries of food to isolated northern Gaza because of attacks and the breakdown of civil order in the region. The weakening of the aid operations threatens to deepen misery across the territory, where Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 29,000 Palestinians. Regional tensions and Diplomacy The US vetoed an Arab-backed and widely supported UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. Before the vote, Algeria’s UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama said: “A vote in favour of this draft resolution is a support to the Palestinians’ right to life. Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted against them.” China’s Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun said that the US’s veto “stifles” an “overwhelming consensus” among the UNSC’s members on a ceasefire in Gaza. Separately, South Africa argued at the United Nations’ top court that Israel is responsible for apartheid against the Palestinians and that Israel’s occupation of land sought for a Palestinian state is “inherently and fundamentally illegal”. Israel rejects such claims. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has described Israeli soldiers’ reported looting of homes in Gaza as a “symptom of genocide and ethnic cleansing”. And in Yemen, the Houthi rebels claimed they struck an Israeli cargo ship, the MSC Silver, in the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea with a number of missiles. At today’s session, Amb. Dr. Riyad Mansour condemned the Security Council’s failure to call for a #ceasefire in #Gaza “By the time this session ends, over 25 #Palestinians will be dead due to the Council’s inaction, It means more babies will be murdered.” @AlgeriaUN @UN #UNSC pic.twitter.com/J9d0LT3bvs — State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) February 21, 2024 Violence in the occupied West Bank Israeli forces destroyed infrastructure and fired live rounds in Jenin, as raids on dozens of homes continue in the city in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The Israeli military said it had targeted a “terrorist cell” with an air strike in Jenin, killing three people. Palestinian armed groups said they had responded by using explosive devices against Israeli military vehicles. Israeli forces also arrested a minor in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Prove charge or…’: BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari dares Bengal police over ‘Khalistani’ jibe allegations
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Ken Paxton sues to revoke an El Paso nonprofit’s state registration after it didn’t immediately hand over client records
Annunciation House, a network of shelters that serves migrants, sought relief from the attorney general’s demand to immediately release information about its clients. Paxton accused the religious group of smuggling humans across the southern border.